A bit of self publicity!! I was asked to do this recently for the Historic House’s Trust Foundation Board – I think it might be my first post rugby piece!
Al
You can view a PDF of the complete article by clicking here
This blog was posted in Architecture and Concepts
Dinner at the Boss’s House
Over the weekend was my first ever visit to the NSW Government House. The function was the Historic Houses Trust Foundation Governor’s black tie dinner to thank our governors (major sponsors).
Having never been to Government House I was very excited about my first visit. For those who don’t know Sydney well, Government House is on the eastern edge of the CBD directly behind (to the south) of the Sydney Opera House. It is set amongst magnificent gardens leading down to just above the harbour and into the Sydney Botanic Gardens.
This blog was posted in Architecture and Uncategorized
Sydney Alleyways
Some great street art in Sydney just around the corner from my office – part the 2011 ArtAbout Sydney Exhibition.
I actually did a real life double-take when I saw this – such an effective trick.
This blog was posted in Architecture
Back in Business
The month of March was not a good one for electronics in my household.
All in the space of about 3 weeks I managed to kill my laptop, my iPhone, my printer and my e-tag in my car (and while we’re at it somebody also managed to run into my car whilst it was parked in the street!). Well I now have a new iPhone, printer and e-tag and have also fully made the move over to Apple with a new MacBook Pro laptop – which means now I’m back in business to continue blogging.
We (the Waratahs) arrived into Auckland today to get ready to play the Auckland Blues tomorrow night so I thought I’d post a few images of the new grandstand at Eden Park. This ground will serve as the main stadium for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in September and in all honesty it’s not overly impressive for a ground that will be holding the final of the Rugby World Cup.
This blog was posted in Architecture and Rugby
A Sustainable Vision for Greater Western Sydney.
Shortly before Christmas, Tatafu Polota-Nau and myself were invited to talk to WSROC (the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils which represents the 10 local councils in Western Sydney) about a sustainable vision for their regional group of local council areas more commonly called Greater Western Sydney (GWS).
This came about because as I have mentioned in an earlier blog, during 2010, I became part of a sustainability consultancy group (Sustainable Forward Consultancy Group) with Waratah and Wallaby hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau and a chemical engineer and ex-investment banker turned strategic sustainability consultant Chris Andrew.
This blog was posted in Architecture and Concepts
Toyo Ito in Taiwan
I came across this brilliant stadium when in at work (Cox Richardson) the other day. I was looking into a project we are doing in Kaohsiung (an exhibition and convention centre by the waterfront) and found some images for the main stadium for the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan designed by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito.
This blog was posted in Architecture
Thanks and onwards
Firstly thank you for all the kind and informative responses to my debut blog. Thank you also for all the invitations to visit your home stadiums in a number of different locations around the world – I would love to try and visit as many as possible to showcase them on my blog but I fear I may not be able to get to them all.
I would also like to thank you for informing me of two more architect rugby players – Hugo Porta and Wynand Claassen who both played rugby in the amateur era. Porta was a fly half from Argentina between 1971 and 1990 (a 19 year international career – extraordinary!) and Claassen was a Number 8 for South Africa in the early 80’s.
This blog was posted in Architecture
Two Worlds
I’m passionate about sports stadiums, 1950’s modernist houses, transport architecture, sustainability, German sailing boats and rugby.
I am in the fairly rare position of being both a professional rugby union player as well as involved in the design of stadiums as a practicing graduate architect for Cox Richardson Architects (I have not yet sat my registration exams so I am only allowed to call myself a graduate architect).
This blog was posted in Architecture
